README.rdoc

Shoulda - Making tests easy on the fingers and eyes

Shoulda makes it easy to write elegant, understandable, and maintainable
tests. Shoulda consists of matchers, test helpers, and assertions. It's
fully compatible with your existing tests in Test::Unit or RSpec, and
requires no retooling to use.

Matchers

Test::Unit- and RSpec-compatible one-liners that test common Rails
functionality. These tests would otherwise be much longer, more complex,
and error-prone.

Helpers

#context and #should give you RSpec like test blocks in Test::Unit. In
addition, you get nested contexts and a much more readable syntax.

Assertions

Many common Rails testing idioms have been distilled into a set of useful
assertions.

Usage

ActiveRecord Tests (Shoulda::ActiveRecord::Matchers)

Test your ActiveRecord associations and validations with these powerful
matchers:

class PostTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
should belong_to(:user)
should have_many(:tags).through(:taggings)
should validate_uniqueness_of(:title)
should validate_presence_of(:body).with_message(/wtf/)
should validate_presence_of(:title)
should validate_numericality_of(:user_id)
end
class UserTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
should have_many(:posts)
should_not allow_value("blah").for(:email)
should_not allow_value("b lah").for(:email)
should allow_value("a@b.com").for(:email)
should allow_value("asdf@asdf.com").for(:email)
should ensure_inclusion_of(:email).in_range(1..100)
should ensure_inclusion_of(:age).in_range(1..100)
should_not allow_mass_assignment_of(:password)
end

Makes TDD so much easier.

Controller Tests (Shoulda::Controller::Matchers)

Matchers to test the most common controller patterns…

class PostsControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
context "on GET to :show for first record" do
setup do
get :show, :id => 1
end
should assign_to(:user)
should respond_with(:success)
should render_template(:show)
should_not set_the_flash
should "do something else really cool" do
assert_equal 1, assigns(:user).id
end
end
end

Context Helpers (Shoulda::Context)

Stop killing your fingers with all of those underscores… Name your tests
with plain sentences!

class UserTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
context "A User instance" do
setup do
@user = User.find(:first)
end
should "return its full name" do
assert_equal 'John Doe', @user.full_name
end
context "with a profile" do
setup do
@user.profile = Profile.find(:first)
end
should "return true when sent #has_profile?" do
assert @user.has_profile?
end
end
end
end

Produces the following test methods:

"test: A User instance should return its full name."
"test: A User instance with a profile should return true when sent #has_profile?."

Rails Installation (Test::Unit)

Rails Installation (RSpec)

If you're using Shoulda with RSpec, we recommend that you add
config.gem lines for RSpec and Shoulda in your config/environment/test.rb
file, but do not ask Rails to load the RSpec and Shoulda libraries: